The Good Wife Creators Tease Alicia's Next Step, Flashbacks to Come

On The Good Wife Season 6 Episode 20, Kalinda’s departure was the straw that broke Alicia’s back, so to speak, as she was doubled over in anguish and pain to conclude the hour.

Will the attorney return to the courtroom? Is she going to get a chance to say goodbye to her once-close friend? And is there any room for romance in her life?

Those were just some of the questions I had when I got on the phone for a quick chat with series creators Robert and Michelle King to find out what we’ll see on The Good Wife Season 6 Episode 21. One thing is for sure: the journey to the finale is going to be a good one...

TV Fanatic: Where we left off, I feel like Alicia is at a similar point where she was at the very start of the series. Am I reading that right? Is that intentional?

Robert King: Oh, yes.

Michelle King: You’re exactly right.

RK: The parallel is supposed to be that that was in the aftermath of Peter’s scandal and this is in the aftermath Alicia’s scandal so, in theory, it’s supposed to be much worse. Even though at one point in the series, Alicia said, ‘if there are mistakes made again, I want to be the one who makes them.’ I think now she has to face the fact that there were mistakes she made along the path to where she is now.

MK: The irony is that with Peter’s scandal he was guilty of sleeping with prostitutes. In this case, Alicia was not guilty of fixing an election so it’s a double hurt in that she is being victimized by something she didn’t do.

TVF: Is the answer to what she needs to do next more personal or professional? Or is it equal on both sides?

RK: It’s a good question. I would put it at 60/40. I think it would be more personal.

TVF: Zach (Alicia and Peter’s son, played by Graham Phillips) in these last two episodes. What do we see with him being back? Is that a big story point with him back?

RK: I wouldn’t say it’s a big story point but it’s has been lingering. It’s something in the writer’s room we call ‘hanging chads,’ and that is little plot points that we plan to answer later in the year and then the closer you get to the end of the year you do have to answer them. What we wanted to do was find that Alicia kind of turned this empty nest bomb inside out where she really felt angry towards Zach for being lied to over so many occasions.

I think one of the benefits, as Alicia says of this scandal is it’s made her a bit humbled in her quickness to judge other people. I think that almost softens her character a bit because she can be a bit hard often.

TVF: And was the note Kalinda left just the straw that broke Alicia’s back after everything else?

RK: Yes and the feeling that something really can’t be corrected, something is over, that you don’t have any opportunity to change direction on a friendship because it’s over. And we’re going to hear more about the note in the finale but I’ll leave that a little up in the air.

TVF: So we will find out what the note said?

RK: We will find out more of what the note said.

TVF: In this coming episode, I know we’re flashing back to a previous point in Alicia’s life. How does that inform the decisions she needs to make?

RK: Part of it is career because the flashbacks are all caused by the evidence that she had in a case she had when she was two months into working at Lockhart Gardner, what was then called Stern, Lockhart Gardner. That case comes back in a case of what some call double jeopardy. The man who was injured supposedly by her client dies and therefore this person could be now tried for murder six or seven years later.

So, in fact, it gives Alicia a chance to compare herself with how she fights the law now to how she fights the law when she was first starting out. Her relationship with Kalinda has changed, her relationship with Cary has changed. Everything has gone through so many evolutions so seeing them go up against each other is interesting.

TVF: Correct me if I’m wrong but if we flash back to that time Will Gardner is alive and could pop up in some of these scenes, right?

RK: [laughs] Josh Charles is doing incredible work with Amy Schumer shorts so we don’t have him back for this episode.